by Cody Bye on Apr 09, 2008
The rest of Mabinogi’s
character creation system is fairly
intuitive and features the standard choices of hair, facial features,
gender, and naming options. After a bit of experimenting, I finished
off my red-headed 10 year old named Micajah and set him off into the
world of Mabinogi.
Upon first arriving in the gaming space, you’re not actually
in
the world of Mabinogi
proper. Instead, you’re in a spacious white
wonderland where the game’s ambivalent feature character,
Nao,
descends from the heavens in all of her voluptuous glory. With an
innocent grin (and a strange bit of bouncing), Nao proceeds to explain
where you are and how to interact with the world around you.
It’s
a lengthy dialogue, but I was impressed with the amount of effort the
Nexon developers put into the translation of Nao’s narration.
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Nao is the first NPC
your character will meet. Things are looking up!
In fact,
style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi falls into
the very small group of imported games
that have truly mastered the art of proper localization. Even while I
was scrutinizing the dialogue for errors, I was ejoying the story that
Nao was telling me. The other NPCs I met in my initial experience were
also extremely well-translated, and it shows that Nexon really put in a
large amount of effort to make Mabinogi
accessible to every type of
gamer.
Once Nao was finished with her introductory tutorial, I was whisked off
to the main world in Mabinogi.
Alighting upon the ground, I instantly
made my way to my first quest task, which was to find the
“Chief” in the area. To get there, I obviously
needed to
figure out my best movement options. Controlling your character in
Mabinogi is
done almost completely via the mouse. While I typically
enjoy moving my characters via the WASD buttons on my keyboard,
Mabinogi
seemed like an appropriate type of game for moving with mouse
clicks. That may seem like a strange sentiment, but it just worked for
this particular game.
Once I found the “Chief” of the town, he explained
to me
the various ways to gain experience, earn money, and advance my skills
in Mabinogi.
Unlike many of the other MMORPGs on the market,
style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
doesn’t force players to go down a particular path in order
to be
successful in the game world. Although hunting mythical monsters is an
option, many players may choose to harvest herbs, milk cows, or work a
smithy for their money. On top of that, players can also find
“Part-Time Jobs” to do around a particular town.
These
“mini-quests” can be accomplished once per in-game
day and
will give the player a certain amount of coin to do whatever they wish
with. Of course, hunting is also an option for the intrepid adventurer,
and monsters regularly troll the hillsides for unwary travelers.
Combat in Mabinogi
falls under one of those “easy to learn, tough
to master” sort of scenarios. Constructed to act like a giant
game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, players will be
constantly
watching their enemies to see what attack they’ll be readying
next. For example, a Smash Attack will break past a character in
Defense mode, but a Regular Attack will always defeat a Smash Attack in
a heads-up contest. All of this plays out in real time, and the combat
system continues to evolve into greater levels of complexity as you
advance. Although I’m still only in my lowest levels, I can
tell
that hunting in the world of Mabinogi
is not for the lazy or faint of
heart.
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Creating dungeons in
Mabinogi is as easy as dropping an item.
Once they have the money, players can then choose to learn in game
skills – combat or otherwise – through classes that
NPCs
“teach”. Money can also be used for any of the
common uses
– items, scrolls, equipment – and is a fairly
valuable
commodity in the world. However, I have yet to see an official
“gold farmer” speak up in the game and try to
peddle gold
to me.
Finally, I would need to be scorned if I forgot to mention the
intriguing “insta-dungeon” creation system that has
been
developed for Mabinogi.
Unlike most typical MMOGs where you need to
crawl around the countryside looking for quests, players in
style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
have the option of creating unique, level-based quests for themselves
and their party by simply dropping an item onto the “Altar of
the
Goddess”. Each item is connected with a unique dungeon,
so creating new adventures for you and your party is as easy as
dropping a sword onto the altar and seeing what appears around you.
Even though I’m still only in the lowest stages of gameplay
in
Mabinogi,
I’ve been enjoying my time in the world. Despite the
oddity of playing a 10 year old character, I can’t help but
smile
as I run around the world and find new NPCs to interact with. Each time
I pick up a new item, I wonder where I’ll be ushered off to
when
I drop it on the altar. It’s really been a thoroughly
enjoyable
experience.
For now, I can’t help but recommend that interested players
at
least give Mabinogi
a shot. It’s free to play, and it’s
certainly a unique take on the MMOG experience. If you’re
still
on the fence, keep checking in with Ten Ton Hammer as our official
review should be right around the corner!